Meet the Chariton Improvement Association

If this photograph of the distinguished women of the Chariton Improvement Association taken 1896-98 seems a little fuzzy --- it is. This was not photographer Waldo Rich's finest hour --- but it is the only known group photo of members  of the organization.

The Improvement Association was organized in 1893 by prominent women of Chariton who had grown frustrated with lack of male attention to detail --- the need for sidewalks, paved streets and city parks, for example. The fact that public areas were being used as dumps. Even the lack of a rational street naming system (the Improvement Association is responsible for our current street and avenue names).

For the next 15 years or so, the association worked, complained and lobbied until a majority of its concerns had been addressed. Jessie Mallory Thayer, peering out from among the vines in the upper right hand corner of this snapshot, was the prime mover and spokesperson, writing many letters to the city's various editors addressing city needs.

Waldo was not a studio photographer, but instead hauled his equipment from place to place in Lucas and nearby counties drumming up business as he went. Rural schools children were a favorite subject, but he does not seem to have used an imprint on his cards so it's difficult to identify photographs he may have taken. Whoever wrote the identifications on the back of this photograph from the Lucas County Historical Society collection also identified the photographer. Rich worked in Chariton from 1896-1898, then moved along.

The two women seated, with dogs, in the foreground are identified as Mrs. Martha Stuart Jackson and Mrs. George Von Behren.

The four women in the second row (from left) --- Mrs. Clayton, Mrs. T.M. Stuart, Mrs. Mona (Harry) Stewart and Mrs. Ida Penick Stuart.

Third row (from left) Mrs. (Laura) Gibbon, Miss Susan Tuel, Miss Emily McCormick, Mrs. Minnie Crocker, Mrs. Anna Copeland, Mrs. Jay Smyth and Mrs. Gene Baker.

Fourth row (from left) Mrs. Judson Stewart, Mrs. Underhill, Mrs. Dora Custer, Mrs. Zora Harper, Mrs. Charles Kirk, Mrs. Freda Oppenheimer and Mrs. Lillian Butts.

Back row (from left) Miss Margaret McCormick (holding unidentified infant), Mrs. Lizzie Penick, Mrs. Mary Penick, Mrs. Effie Brown Douglass, Mrs. J.A. Penick and Mrs. Jessie Mallory Thayer.